Snake in the grass?
Jim came running in to see Rosie "I've found a snakeskin - I'm going to make a snakeskin belt!". Rosie, always being a bit cautious when Jim is exuberant (although an excellent quality in a scarecrow) thought that she would check it out. Unfortunately the 'snakeskin' was secondhand and had already been worn by a grassnake before being sloughed. Rosie thinks that it shed its skin just before the breeding season - hopefully there will be some baby snakes around later in the summer as the grass heap is hot enough to incubate the eggs. Grass snakes are reasonably common in the Hope Bagot area and largely eat frogs, other small amphibians, fish and small mammals (field voles abound here). If any one has seen slow worms please let Jim know (there are many around the railway track areas of Ludlow).
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Hope Bagot
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Hope Bagot, Ludlow, Shropshire, SY8 3AF